The day after a large-scale forced search was conducted near the Noble District, Rei was going through procedures in front of Gilm's Main Gate to dismantle the Gigant Turtle, just as he always did.
With this many people processing all at once, it naturally took a certain amount of time.
During that wait, Rei listened in on the conversations happening around him. As expected, yesterday's incident had become quite the topic.
"They caught the guy controlling those Cobolts, right? Hope this means we won't have Cobolts showing up in massive numbers anymore."
"Huh? Is that so? From what I heard, he prepared a body double and managed to escape."
"Oh, I heard they were sacrificing people to the Cobolt King to produce Cobolts."
A variety of voices reached his ears. Some of the details were completely off base, but here and there, fragments of truth were mixed in.
"It's only been a day, and yet there's already so much information flying around."
Vihera had noticed Rei eavesdropping on the surrounding chatter. She spoke with a hint of amusement.
For Vihera, the current situation—with so many different rumors circulating—was probably quite entertaining.
"Yeah. Well, with that many people involved in the forced search, information was bound to leak from somewhere."
Yesterday's operation had technically been carried out as a Nomination Request that bypassed the Guild entirely, so after the search concluded, a modest compensation had been paid out to the participants.
There were likely more than a few who took that reward straight to a tavern, got drunk, and started blabbing about the raid. Others probably recounted tales of their own bravery as pillow talk to prostitutes at a brothel.
Perhaps because Daskar understood this as well, he had asked people to keep quiet about it, but he hadn't enforced a particularly strict gag order.
As a result, the current situation had come about.
"For now, what I'm curious about is whether the Cobolts will show up again today."
"Ah. If those tentacles were really the cause of the Cobolt outbreak, they probably will."
"Quite a number of adventurers and guards became casualties, after all."
Perhaps recalling the many corpses she had seen in the Underground Space yesterday, Vihera murmured quietly so the people around them couldn't hear.
Based on what Rei and his group knew, the process involved offering Red Cloth members as sacrifices to the tentacles, thereby producing large quantities of Cobolts. The exact method—whether it was summoning, creation, or calling them from somewhere—remained unknown.
But the mansions connected to the Underground Space had been thoroughly searched during yesterday's raid, and Javis, who was highly likely to be the mastermind, had been captured.
If so, the act of offering sacrifices itself should have become impossible. However, because so many people had been killed by the tentacles in the Underground Space yesterday, a sufficient number had already perished as sacrifices.
Of course, after that, the tentacles had suffered at the hands of Vihera's Magic Impact Palm, followed by significant damage from Rei's thrown spear. Whether they could still produce Cobolts the same way as before was unclear.
While Rei and Vihera conversed, the procedures progressed. Eventually, everyone finished and filed out through the Main Gate.
And what came into view for those stepping outside was...
"Yeah, Cobolts, just as I thought."
Lured by the scent of blood and flesh from yesterday's Gigant Turtle dissection, a large pack of Cobolts stood at the edge of Rei's line of sight.
"Set, I'm counting on you."
"Grrrrrrl!"
In response to Rei's call, Set, who had been playing with someone a short distance away, reacted instantly. He rubbed his face against his caretaker as if to say sorry before leaving them behind.
At Set's departure, those seeing him off naturally raised their voices in encouragement.
"Set, do your best!"
"Once you're done with the Cobolts, I'll give you some dried meat!"
"Oh, then I'll bring sandwiches."
"Hey, isn't that your lunch? Are you sure?"
"For Set-chan, this much is nothing!"
Bolstered by the cheers of the Set Enthusiasts, Set took a few running steps, flapped his wings, and soared into the sky.
As if already accustomed to the routine, he unleashed Fire Breath from above, incinerating the Cobolts on the ground one after another.
"How peaceful."
Vihera, who had been watching the scene, murmured quietly beside Rei.
Hearing that, Rei tilted his head in bewilderment. Peaceful?
Even now, in his line of sight, Cobolts were engulfed in flames from the Fire Breath, screaming and rolling across the snow as they tried to extinguish the fire consuming their bodies. It was a scene far removed from the word "peaceful."
"Where exactly in that scene do you find the word 'peaceful'?"
"It is peaceful, isn't it? Compared to fighting tentacles stretching out endlessly from a spatial rift in the Underground Space."
"...Well."
When she put it that way, Rei found it strange that the scene before him did indeed start to look peaceful.
While they talked, Set's one-sided slaughter of the Cobolts continued until eventually only countless charred corpses remained scattered around them.
"It doesn't have to be peaceful. If some powerful monster showed up, that would be interesting in its own way."
At Vihera's utterly characteristic remark, Rei lost the will to even retort. Instead, he turned to welcome Set, who came trotting over happily after defeating the Cobolts, clearly asking for praise.
"Gruu! Grrrrrl, gruuru!"
"Yeah, you did great. Your Fire Breath from the sky is incredibly effective against weak monsters like Cobolts and Goblins."
Set looked delighted at being praised by Rei.
Of course, while the attack was devastatingly effective, the fact that the corpses were charred meant that no materials could be harvested from them. The subjugation proof parts were also burned away depending on their condition.
If anything could be recovered, it would be the Magic Stones. But dismantling the Gigant Turtle yielded far better rewards and more meat as compensation than collecting Cobolt Magic Stones.
Even those from the Slum District chose Gigant Turtle dissection over stripping Cobolts—that alone should make it easy to understand just how large the gap in rewards was.
Naturally, if there were Slum District residents who hadn't joined the Gigant Turtle dissection, they would try to secure at least the Magic Stones, which sold for the highest price among monster parts.
At any rate, with the Cobolts that had occupied their usual spot now eliminated, Rei immediately retrieved the Gigant Turtle from his Misty Ring.
"Alright, I'll leave it to you. Still, it's been quite a while since the dissection started, and yet it hasn't progressed all that much. I knew this would happen, though."
"That's right. You said it yourself, didn't you, Rei-san—that it would be practically impossible to dismantle everything in just this one winter? I expect it will be a project spanning several years. The fact that it can only be done during winter is the painful part."
Dissection work might have been possible in autumn or spring, but in those seasons, most adventurers would be busy with their own work, and monsters would also become more active.
And above all, it was certain that the Expansion Construction in Gilm would require manpower and become extremely busy.
There was simply no way they could spare hands for the Gigant Turtle dissection.
A few might be motivated enough to want to earn some extra coin, but most of them won't have the energy to take on another job, even if it's only in the early morning, thanks to the exhaustion from the Expansion Construction.
That was Rei's impression from watching the construction work carried out the previous year.
Originally, the reason so many people had flocked to Gilm's Expansion Construction was because they could earn a decent wage in a short period.
For those workers, carelessly taking on the Gigant Turtle dissection would likely leave them too tired to handle the actual construction work when it mattered.
It might be fine for a short period—a few days or so—but continuing such a routine long-term would be physically brutal.
Above all, if they could only work for a few days, there was a high probability that just as they were getting the hang of the dissection, the work would already be over.
Considering all that, winter—when the Expansion Construction was suspended and most experienced adventurers had no work—was undoubtedly the optimal time for the Gigant Turtle dissection.
"Well, they're covering the dissection costs too, so if I think of it as bringing work to Gilm during the winter, that's good enough. We also get to receive Gigant Turtle meat almost every day."
If they dismantled a large amount at once, the quantity of meat received would also increase, but normally one couldn't possibly eat all that meat by oneself before it went bad.
In that regard, receiving a set amount of meat almost every day like this was ideal.
Of course, in Rei's case, he had the Misty Ring, so even if he received a large quantity of meat at once, it wouldn't rot.
Rather, it was the workers doing the dismantling who worried about such things.
"Ahaha, it helps to hear you say that. Well then, let's get started right away—"
"Ah, hold on a moment."
Rei stopped the Guild Staff Member who was about to dive straight into work.
The man looked at him with a What is it? expression. Rei prefaced by saying the man had probably already heard the rumors, then spoke.
"About yesterday's incident near the Noble District—how much do you know?"
"Well, I know the gist of it. Information has been flowing into the Guild from the Guard Force."
As he said this, a hint of displeasure crossed his expression. The adventurers who had participated in yesterday's forced search had done so through a Nomination Request that bypassed the Guild entirely.
Since it hadn't gone through the Guild, no intermediary fees had been collected, which meant the Guild had lost out on that revenue.
That said, Gilm's Guild was experiencing a boom so rare in recent years thanks to the Expansion Construction.
Even now, in winter when construction was suspended, the Guild's coffers were undoubtedly warm thanks to the Gigant Turtle dissection that Rei had brought in.
While no materials had been sold to the Guild yet, Rei's firm promise to sell through them was significant in itself.
Moreover, since the Guild Staff Member understood why the Guard Force had to handle things the way they did, he couldn't exactly blame them.
"I see. At any rate, if you already know the circumstances, I'm sure you've guessed this much. We weren't able to defeat the one who kept releasing Cobolts around Gilm, but we did manage to injure them. We also succeeded in capturing the one who appears to be the mastermind, so no more sacrifices can be offered. In other words..."
"The Cobolts will disappear. Is that what you're saying?"
"Yeah. It's not a guarantee—more of a 'probably' than anything."
"But there were Cobolts here earlier, weren't there?"
"...Yesterday, adventurers and guards died in the Underground Space. There's a high chance that served as a form of sacrifice. If that's true, then starting tomorrow, I think either no Cobolts will appear at all, or even if they do, the numbers will drop significantly."
Even as he said this, Rei privately suspected that the pink tentacles might become enraged at no longer receiving sacrifices, and it wasn't impossible that they would emerge from the Underground Space.
Ranga had said he would handle that matter somehow, so Rei figured it would probably be fine. But even Ranga likely hadn't said that with absolute confidence.
"I see. Then it seems we won't have to worry much about Cobolts from tomorrow onward. In that case, should we reduce the number of escorts?"
"No, the monsters drawn by the Gigant Turtle's blood scent aren't just Cobolts, right? In the Cobolts' case, they appeared near Gilm, which is probably why they concentrated here. But there are monsters other than Cobolts to deal with, so escorts should still be necessary."
"I see. Well, there are plenty of adventurers who want to serve as escorts, so I'm sure they'll be happy about that."
The Guild Staff Member spoke with quiet earnestness.
Even without participating in the Gigant Turtle dissection, one could earn meat simply by serving as an escort.
On top of that, the only opponents they had to fight were monsters on the level of Cobolts—hardly a challenge for most of the adventurers working as escorts.
They might struggle if swarmed by a massive horde, but Rei used Terrain Manipulation to ensure that didn't happen.
Given those conditions, it was only natural that many adventurers would want to sign on as escorts for the Gigant Turtle dissection.
"Even if the Cobolts decrease, there's no denying the possibility of powerful monsters showing up. So I don't think they'll have reason to simply rejoice."
With that, Rei continued his discussion with the Guild Staff Member about the Gigant Turtle dissection.